Andrea Belfi discusses his latest album, Eternally Frozen, a canon-based composition for percussion, electronics, and brass ensemble. Inspired by a visit to LA’s Museum of Jurassic Technology, Belfi draws upon the story of Deprong Mori, a mythological bat that could use its powers of echolocation to phase through solid matter, before being captured by an American researcher, “eternally frozen” in lead. Movement, circularity, and stasis are all terms that also describe Belfi’s interests as a composer. We discuss his origins in Italy’s punk scene, his time as drummer of the noisy instrumental rock band Rosolina Mar, opening for Thom Yorke, and the development of his unique approach to solo performance as a drummer. (Joseph Sannicandro)
Episode 31: FREE TIME – with Andrea Belfi
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Interview recorded between Montreal and Berlin, April 2023
Produced and mixed in Montreal, August-September 2023
The pandemic has led many of us to ruminate on the circularity of time, but of course a percussionist is more keyed into this fact than most of us. Afterall, the role of the percussionist is to subdivide time, to manipulate and play with those divisions. So it’s no surprise, then, that Belfi’s pandemic record is an explicit meditation on time and repetition, in the form of five canon-based compositions. A canon is a contrapuntal musical technique in which a melody is imitated and repeated at different intervals, creating shifting relations between the notes. Even relatively simple inputs can produce quite complex results, as illusory melodies emerge from the canon, which in theory can be repeated ad infinitum. And while Eternally Frozen, released earlier this year on the Bologna-based label Maple Death, is in some ways the culmination of the development of Belfi’s solo work, it also marks a new highpoint in his career as a composer.
Based in Berlin for over a decade, Belfi was born and raised in Verona, a picturesque northern Italian city famous as the setting of Romeo and Juliet and full of ancient Roman antiquities, including the famous Arena di Verona. Despite the city’s reputation as a bastion of conservatism and Catholicism (indeed, with strong links to Italian fascism and contemporary neo-fascist groups), Belfi spent his formative years embedded in a very different side of Verona, associated with an anarchist squat. He was attracted to American skateboarding culture and hardcore punk music, forming the group Wallride with some friends and choosing the drums because they lacked a drummer. By the early 2000s, he had formed the band Rosolina Mar with guitarists Bruno Vanessi and Enrico Zambon, a group which toured extensively and became renowned for their impressively energetic live shows.
Absent a vocalist or bass player, Belfi’s resonant tom-heavy drumming was already distinctive, anchoring the angular dueling twin guitars. He credits his bandmate Bruno as an important source for discovering music, introducing him to early rock n roll, Mod, Northern Soul, and other British music that influenced the unique sound of the group. Readers who have been with us since The Site Before might remember we were very fond of Rosolina Mar, but it’s not quite right to group them in with other Italian post-rock bands, such as Neil on impression or Giardini di Mirò, as we did at the time. In our conversation, Belfi explains that the trio imagined themselves as garage rock filtered through the noisier aesthetic of Skin Graft Records (eg. Arab on Radar, The Flying Luttenbachers, and especially U.S. Maple).
As evidenced by my conversation with Bruce Adams (co-founder of kranky), the Chicago scene in the 1990s had an outsized influence on global music, and Belfi affirms the crucial influence of figures such as Jim O’Rourke and David Grubbs, both for their own music as for championing (then) lesser known genres, including Krautrock and musique concrète. Gastr del Sol in particular served as an inspiration for Belfi in bridging rock and the avant-garde, encouraging him to experiment with modular synthesis and feedback techniques, cultivating his own unique approach to composition. Belfi aims to keep the dialogue between drums and electronics simple yet dynamic, using MIDI triggers and sequences programmed with a Nord modular synth and a delay unit.
For many years, Belfi played quietly, resisting the association drums have as loud and annoying. (Afterall, who wants a drummer for a neighbor?) In fact, at this point he didn’t play drums at all, but instead manipulated objects and electronic devices, inspired by dub and electroacoustic techniques Records from this period include collaborations with Machinefabriek, Ignaz Schick, Attila Faravelli, and several records with David Grubbs and Stefano Pilia. We might also mention the little known Medves, a one-off group consisting of Belfi with Giuseppe Ielasi, Renato Rinaldi, Riccardo Wanke, and Pilia, released on Ielasi’s Fringes label, as well as the more prolific B/B/S/, a dark ambient trio with Erik K Skodvin and Aidan Baker. That’s an awful lot of our favorite artists working together! The apex of this era is Wege, a solo record released on Room40, a quite minimal and abstract work featuring contributions from regular collaborators Machinefabriek, Faravelli, Pilia, Valerio Tricoli, and many others.
Following a show in Milan in which a particularly rowdy crowd forced him to play more loudly, he found he enjoyed the experience, and began to shift his style once more, reembracing the drum kit. His association with the label FLOAT, founded by the PR person for Erased Tapes, also found him increasingly in the orbit of so-called modern composition, collaborating with Nils Frahm and as a contributing musician to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for Sicario (2015). He describes the records he made in this period—Cera Persa (2016), Ore (2017), Strata (2019)—as documenting the evolution of this formative era in his solo practice. By then, Belfi’s reputation had grown enough that he was invited to open for Thom Yorke on a tour of Europe and North America. What a long road from when the young Belfi saw Radiohead perform at the Arena in Verona. While he is not sure that he can cite this experience as a game changer, it certainly won him some high profile fans, and more importantly served as a necessary confidence booster, reinforcing the feeling that he was on the right track.
Now with Eternally Frozen, composed and recorded during the pandemic, Belfi found himself again looking for collaborators. He is joined by a brass trio, consisting of Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (trombone), Elena Kakaliagou (French horn), and Robin Hayward (tuba), as well as the ensemble Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, contributing choir and strings to the opening track. He even got Sasha Frere-Jones to contribute the liner notes, writing that “canon compositions usually end because recordings end and people get hungry and tired and go home, not because the composition has come to a close. Like the flying bat, the endless piece could exist somewhere.” The endless repeatability of Eternally Frozen is noteworthy, but the attention to timbral modulation also makes the record standout, anchored as always by Belfi’s singular playing.
Belfi cites singular artists including Arthur Russell, Miles Davis, Moondog, and William Basinski as inspirations for Eternally Frozen, as well as the Italian soundtrack tradition represented by Ennio Morricone and Egisto Macchi. In this interview, I press him on the latter, as Macchi is much less well known than his friend Morricone (both of whom were members of the avant-garde Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza), though in fact I think this comparison is particularly apt; Macchi was himself a percussionist, who often paired simple yet evocative rhythmic patterns with close attention to timbral variation.
As I mentioned at the outset, rhythm is about subdividing time, and since music is a time-based art form, it has long been my view that percussionists often make the most interesting composers. So many of my favorite composers (Steve Reich, Vladislav Delay, Macchi, Mai Mai Mai) began as drummers. As I write in a review of a record by the drummer Francesco Gregoretti,
Many of my favorite artists trained as architects, while many of my favorite composers had their origins in the rhythm section. I can’t help but try to find some commonality in this. Architects must strike a balance between being practical and imaginative, understanding both business and art, responding to real-world limitations and concerns which make their work remarkable simply for having been realized at all. Drummers seem to me to share many of these characteristics. There is something about the perspective of the drummer, able to think cyclically and holistically, that grants them a special structural significance. Ugly buildings and sloppy timing will immediately be noticeable, while often the most skillful manifestations are successful precisely because they go unnoticed.
Eternally Frozen deserves your notice, and I’m thrilled to kick off season four of the Sound Proposition podcasts in conversation with Andrea Belfi! [Astute readers may have noticed that we seem to have skipped episode 30. This is no oversight, we’ve got a plan! But more on that soon…]
LINKS
Andrea Belfi
Bandcamp
Maple Death
Rosolina Mar
TRACKLIST
ARTIST – “TITLE” (ALBUM, LABEL, YEAR)
Andrea Belfi – “Golden” [edit 1] (Eternally Frozen, Maple Death, 2023)
SP INTRO
Andrea Belfi – “Golden” [edit 2] (Eternally Frozen, Maple Death, 2023)
Andrea Belfi – “Cera Persa 1” (Cera Persa, Latency, 2016)
Andrea Belfi – “Wege B” (Wege, Room40, 2012)
Andrea Belfi – “Ton” (Ore, Float, 2017)
Thom Yorke – “Atoms for Peace” (The Eraser, XL, 2006)
Four Tet – “Pyramid (Atoms For Peace remix)” (Pink Remixes, Bandcamp, 2014)
Andrea Belfi – “Pulsing” (Eternally Frozen, Maple Death, 2023)
Carla Bozulich – “Pissing” (Evangelista, Constellation, 2006)
Andrea Belfi & Ignaz Schick – “Myth 5” (The Myth Of Persistence Of Vision Revisited, Zarek, 2011)
Steve Reich / Ulrich Krieger (performer) – “Pendulum Music” (An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music / Fourth A-Chronology 1937-2005, Sub Rosa, 2006)
Andrea Belfi – “Shale” (Strata, Float, 2019)
Steve Reich – “Drumming, Part I” (Works 1965-1995 (Disc 02 – Drumming), Nonesuch, 1997)
John Zorn / Ennio Morricone – “The Battle of Algiers” (The Big Gundown, Nonesuch, 1986)
Ennio Morricone – “L’Attentato” (C’era una volta il west, RCA, 1969)
Egisto Macchi – “Gare Spatiale” (I Futuribili, Gemelli, 1971)
Egisto Macchi – “Jungla I”(Africa Minima, Anya, 1972)
Vladislav Delay – “Nesso” (Multila, Chain Reaction, 2000)
Vladislav Delay – “Mustelmia” (Tummaa, Leaf, 2009)
Medves [Andrea Belfi, Giuseppe Ielasi, Renato Rinaldi, Riccardo Wanke, Stefano Pilia] – “Untitled” [Figures Side] (Medves, Fringes Recordings, 2004)
Rosolina Mar – “Malpensa Social Club” (Rosolina Mar, Wallace, 2004)
Swell Maps – “Harmony In Your Bathroom” (A Trip To Marineville, Rough Trade, 1979)
Antioch Arrow – “David” (Gems Of Masochism, Amalgamated, 1995)
Clikatat Ikatowi- “Science Fiction Reality” (Orchestrated And Conducted By…, Gravity, 1996)
Antioch Arrow – “Date With Destiny” (Gems Of Masochism, Amalgamated, 1995)
Drive Like Jehu – “If it kills you” (Drive Like Jehu, Headhunter, 1992)
Clikatat Ikatowi – “Rise and Shine” (River of Souls, Gravity, 1998)
Heroin – “Indecision” [rework] (All About Heroin, Vinyl Communications, 1991)
Hiroshima Rocks – “Walking Like US Maple” (Around Isolation Bus Blues, NO=FI, 2001)
Stereolab – “Metronomic Underground” (Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Elektra, 1996)
Gastr del Sol – “Thos. Dudley Ah! Old Must Dye” (Crookt, Crackt, Or Fly, Drag City, 1995)
Gastr del Sol – “The Japanese Room At La Pagode” (The Japanese Room At La Pagode / May [Split with Tony Conrad], Table of the Elements, 1995)
Rosolina Mar – “La Bottega Del Krapftwerk” (Rosolina Mar, Wallace, 2004)
Rosolina Mar – “Before And After Dinner” (Before And After Dinner, Wallace, 2005)
Rosolina Mar – “L’ora Di Religione” (Before And After Dinner, Wallace, 2005)
Rosolina Mar – “Mingozo di Mongozo (Claudio Rocchetti Remix)” (Rosolina Mar Meet Trumans Water, Robot Radio, 2007)
Rhythm & Sound – “Trace” (Rhythm & Sound, Rhythm & Sound, 2001)
Andrea Belfi – “Picture Burning” (…a gift for (°!°)…, Afe/Grey Sparkle/et. al, 2004)
3/4hadbeeneliminated – “Loop Recorder in the Patient with Heart Disease” (a year of the aural gauge operation, häpna, 2005)
Andrea Belfi – “Iso” (Ore, Float, 2017)
Andrea Belfi – “Pastorale” (Eternally Frozen, Maple Death, 2023)
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Sound Propositions is written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Joseph Sannicandro.
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